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American’s Food Stamp Presidency

In Monday night’s Fox News/WSJ debate, Fox News‘ Juan Williams “challenged Gingrich for his statements calling President Obama a ‘food stamp president’ and advocating that kids learn the work ethic by doing, for instance, janitorial work at schools. Gingrich has thrived throughout the debate season on combat with moderators and Williams was straying into his wheelhouse. A righteously ticked Gingrich referred to Williams as ‘Juan,’ and proceeded to light up the auditorium in the most memorable moment of the night.”

More specifically, Williams zeroed in on the “food stamp president” comment for which Gingrich has come under fire and insinuated that it was racist to make such a claim:

“Speaker Gingrich, you said black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. You also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools,” Williams asked. “Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?”

So, calling President Obama a Food Stamp President is “insulting” to black Americans. That’s convenient. He (Newt) has simply made the factual claim that under this president more food stamps have been given out (to ALL ethnic groups) than during any other presidency. WHAT, pray tell, is racist about that? Williams brought up race. Newt never said anything of the sort. Frankly, those who make the case that such a statement is racist or at minimum insensitive towards African Americans are in fact revealing their own misguided belief that African Americans receive the majority of the food stamps. Incidentally that just simply isn’t true. According to the the USDA, as reported by Fox News:

“The information available showed 34 percent of recipients were white, while 22 percent were black and 16 percent were Hispanic.”

Even if it were true that African Americans receive more food stamps than other groups, HOW is slamming the president for doing a dismal job on the economy (as more food stamp distribution would indicate in ANY presidency) RACIST? If the case for racial discrimination is to be made, it should be levied against the Democrat party and liberal policies that for GENERATIONS have kept so many African Americans and minorities in general exactly where they are economically. It is true, however, that minority groups combined receive more Food Stamps than white Americans. Minorities, but particularly African Americans vote Democrat, especially with the recent shift of the Hispanic vote. Incidentally, did you know that there are actually Democrat Party Voter Registration tables at some naturalization ceremonies? Oh yeah. Click here to read more. Back to the point- it’s rather imperative that the Democrat party keep that voting bloc in tow to continue winning elections. How is this done? It’s done by continuing push for all of these social welfare programs to then be in the position to give these as handouts, and by making the case that conservatism and the GOP just wants to take it all away in a discriminatory fashion. As we’ve pointed out at least in the Food Stamp case, minorities receive the majority. The theory is that no one would in their right mind would vote out someone who keeps padding massive welfare programs that they then benefit from, especially if they’re told that the opposing party only plans to throw minorities and Grandma under the bus. I’m not insinuating that there are not legitimate cases for the various forms of welfare assistance. I’m simply saying that far too much attention is paid to churning out more social programs and far less attention paid to facilitating a stable environment in which jobs can be creating, which brings me to Newt’s point.

Newt’s point in the broader sense (that is, beyond food stamps alone) is that rather than continue to make this an entitlement nation whose citizens are continuously reaching their hands out for the next government goody, why not find ways to get ALL Americans back to work to become productive, contributing members of society. Is that, or is that NOT a decent idea? By the way, before someone accuses me otherwise, I am no insinuating that African Americans or any other minority is “lazy.” I am simply pointing out the fact that rather than encouraging ways to get Americans back to work, the Left loves to encourage ways to keep them OUT of work and ON the government dole. Yeah, I said it. Oh, and for that matter, so did the former Speaker of the House. No, not Newt. Nancy Pelosi once made this comment in reference to federal dollars meant to stimulate the economy: “It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance. The biggest bang for the buck.” Oh, ok. And those annoying jobs. . . .those just get in the way of you dragging along an entire swath of the American population, right Nancy?

Here’s the skinny. The Left seems to think (or at least they propogate the idea) that those who live in poverty are there because of some elitist group of white males running the show, finding ways to directly abuse minorities, women, etc. etc. Therefore, the concept of bashing the distribution of food stamps is seen as offensive, because they people supposedly don’t have a choice. Through that lens, therefore, Juan Williams’ insipid comment makes some sense. Is that really true, however? Isn’t it just a bit more reasonable to make the claim that the president and Congress have done a dismal job with this economy, and the resulting growth in the need for Food Stamps and other social programs are a direct indication of the same? I’d think so, but for the left-wing media types, this sort of logic just doesn’t fly. It’s much, much easier to run straight to the race card.

By the way, Juan, isn’t calling the suggestion that poor children could do janitorial work at schools to build work ethic “offensive,” in turn particularly “insulting” to America’s janitors? Whoops.